Case Files: CSI NY
by xfirefly9x
Summary: Mac, Stella, Flack, Danny, Lindsay, Aiden, Adam. A collection of ficlets based on CSI NY.
1. Feelin' Guilty

**_Feelin' Guilty_**

"Feelin' guilty, are we?" Flack asked the young boy leaning on the counter in front of him. He'd been called in to the convenience store to bring the teen in for questioning about a robbery that had taken place a half hour earlier.

The boy, Jake, had yet to speak and wore an expression that could only be one of guilt.

Flack rolled his eyes. "No, I got nowhere to be. If you don't answer my questions this'll be a long night for the both of us. Or you can talk fast and get it over with."

Nothing.

Flack sighed.


	2. Cold Gnawing Fear

**_Cold Gnawing Fear_**

"Come on, Mac! Breathe!"

Adrenaline. Cold, gnawing fear.

"Don't."

Colours dancing in circles, odd shapes, lights, floating around his lip form.

"Leave."

Though it should have, time didn't pause to notice him.

Nothing stopped to help him.

"Me."

Wet. Tears.

Flickering eyelids, softer than the beat of a butterfly's wings.

"Stella?"

A sharp intake of air.

"Mac?"

A grunt.

"How're you feeling?"

A short, pained laugh.

"Like someone just shot me in the chest."

Relief. Burning, all-consuming relief.

"I thought we'd lost you."

Eyes connecting.

Understanding.

"You haven't lost me. I'm still here. I'm going to be fine."

Calmed air.


	3. A Real Hero

**_A Real Hero_**

**Notes:** Tag to "Heroes".

"We got him," Stella tells Mac, although he already knows. She feels a surge of satisfaction go through her along with relief (they've finally got him!) and renewed pain for the loss of her friend.

"We got him," she repeats, softer.

Mac smiles grimly and places a hand on her arm. "Yes," he agrees. "We did."

They share a look.

It's over.

Aiden finally nailed DJ Pratt.

She had sacrificed herself to do so and now the guy was behind bars where he should be.

"She's a hero," Mac adds. "A real hero."

A tear slips down Stella's cheek. "Yeah."


	4. She'll Break

_(Stella)_

**_She'll Break_**

Her feet pound the pavement in a steady rhythm: left foot, right foot, left foot, right. Each step sends a tiny shockwave through her body and a jolt of pain through her aching legs. She's lost track of how much time she's been running and she no longer cares.

She ignores the slight discomfort and keeps at it.

Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right.

She refuses to stop because she knows that if she does, she'll be forced to think. She'll be forced to remember the thing she is running from and she isn't yet ready to confront it.

She continues on.

One foot after the other, until her feet are raw. She doesn't stop. Won't stop. Can't.

She'll break if she stops.

She passes by a hooded guy walking his dog, nodding at him when he wishes her a good evening. It is perhaps the innocence of that gesture that finally gets under her skin and makes her fall.

When the guy is out of sight, she crumples onto the ground, knees collapsing beneath her and falling to the side. One hand lands in the grass and provides her the support she needs to stay upright.

She lowers herself the rest of the way to the ground and lets the tears finally fall.


	5. Everything It Touches

_(Stella)_

**_Everything It Touches_**

The pain is more than she can bear, not that she'll admit it to anyone.

It twists through her veins like blood and poisons everything it touches.

It makes her want to scream; it makes her need to scream.

She refrains, only just.

She can't lose control like she so desires.

To do so would be to go against everything she's believed in her whole life.

She swallows back the urge. Hard.

She closes her eyes.

Everything is better when she closes her eyes.

She can imagine whatever she likes and she doesn't have to deal with the outside world, the real world.

It hurts like hell when she opens her eyes again, but she's learnt that that's life.

Things happen.

Her pain may seem unbearable now, but in time it would fade.

It always did.

In time, the weight of her burdens would be lifted.

She'd be free again.

Soon.


	6. The Day Before

_(Stella)_

**_The Day Before_**

Catching the bad guy at the end of each of her cases in her release. It's such a satisfying feeling knowing that she has done good. She has put somebody who was broken the law behind bars.

It's the best feeling she's ever known.

It means that one less criminal wanders the streets. It may not seem like much but every time she solves a new case, that number increases. Another bad guy is taken off the streets. Another victim is given justice.

If she can achieve both those things, a criminal imprisoned for his or her crimes and a sense of justice for the victim or victims, she can go home knowing she has made the world a safer place than it was the day before.


	7. So Much Pain

**_So Much Pain_**

**Notes:** Touches on suicide.

"Makes you wonder, doesn't it?"

Stella turns and fixes Sheldon with a questioning stare, one eyebrow raised in confusion. "I'm sorry. What does?" She stands up from where she had been squatting next to the vic and joins him a few metres away, brushing her hands on the soft black material of her pants. A strand of hair falls from behind her ear to obscure her vision and she pushes it back without a thought.

Sheldon smiles grimly at her and nods at the young man sprawled, dead, at their feet. "He can't be older than 16 or 17," he tells her, even though she already knows. "To have so much pain that he felt his only option was to commit suicide...especially at his age...it makes you wonder just what he's been through." He falls silent and bows his head for a moment as if contemplating just that, else praying for the boy's soul. Maybe both.

Stella slides her latex gloves off and joins him in reflecting. It's not every day that she has time to stop and think like this - she's usually called on to the next case within minutes of completing the initial investigation of the crime scene for the previous case. Taking the opportunity while it's there, she allows the questions she usually pushes to the back of her mind to surface.

Suicide.

What drove people to it, really? She had always believed - and had been taught and researched - that it was discontentment with a part of someone's life, no matter how large or small, discontentment with themselves, and their lack of desire to move onwards past the hard times.

Sometimes it was an event too unbearable to live on afterwards. Sometimes, if someone had a life threatening disease, they took their own life rather than waiting around for it to happen. It gave them a sense of control.

It was all about control.

Whatever the reason, she was adamant in her belief that no matter how difficult things might get, there was nothing to say they wouldn't get better, easier. Very rarely was a problem as horrific and unchangeable as it seemed to the possessor.

She sighed. "Terrible, isn't it?" she murmured.

Sheldon glanced up at her and inclined his head in a nod. "Yeah."


	8. Raindrops

_Flack/Stella._

**_Raindrops_**

Between them, their hands are linked. Fingers are pressed tightly together. Where his skin ends, hers begins. The droplets of water falling upon them do nothing to loosen their grip but rather urge them to hold on tighter.

She smiles. "Bet you didn't plan on this, Don!"

She shakes her head from side to side, releasing some of the water that has nestled in her curls.

He tilts his head to look at her, smiles apologetically. "Damn right," he agrees, nodding off towards a tree. "Wanna go undercover?"

She eyes the muscles ripping through his wet shirt. "No, I'm good."

_fin._


	9. Strings Of A Puppet

_**Strings Of A Puppet**_

Frustration built up in her chest, tugging at her emotions like they were the strings of a puppet begging to be played with. It was the first time in two months that a case had affected her so strongly but to say that feeling this strongly had caught her off-guard would be a lie.

From the very beginning, she had known this case would be a touch one. All cases that involved kids were touch, homicides like this one in particular.

She let out a heavy sigh and dragged her fingers through her hair, massaging her scalp. Eyes closed, she forced herself to take a deep breath – inhale, exhale – and clear her mind.

It helped but only for the shortest of moments.

The frustration, the anger, that she had not yet been able to find the monster who'd molestered this young girl, was a driving force not to be reckoned with. Only solving this case would free her of the agony it set on fire inside of her.

She nodded to herself, took another deep breath and collected her folder of notes on the case. This was her job and a bout of frustration would not sway her from it. She flipped the file open on the table before her and returned to work.

_fin._


End file.
